For a large majority of games this season, RISP has stood for Royals Insist on Stranding People. Monday night vs Arizona continued that trend with only a very occasional exception.
I know it’s not now. But in your opinion at this rate, when are you comfortable saying this is a talent issue? I really expected to get mixed results this year…but more good than bad. It’s been the opposite and I find myself not blaming the coaches anymore you know? Like Keller, everyone else has improved throwing strikes…why can’t you. It’s not them, it’s you kind of a thing now which probably isn’t the best thinking either but I’m finding myself giving the players no benefit of the doubt anymore when it comes to performance. I think Cal was terrible….so don’t get me wrong. I expected to go the whole year before having a good handle on if it was coaching or talent. I’m pretty sure we can come to that conclusion by June now the way this is going.
Believing that Brad Keller would be consistent this season or even that he would be better than last year required a leap of faith that I simply couldn't take. I knew of no tangible reason to do so.
Nor could I take the leap of faith that would be required in order to have confidence in this latest crew of Magical Pitching Whisperers. Perhaps they've had limited success with isolated pitchers and perhaps not. We may all be overly willing to credit them for the "ups" in the normal ups and downs of baseball.
The fact that they know how to speak in ways that appeal to the analytically-oriented among us is no guarantee that they can improve performances or outcomes in the real world away from their spreadsheets and pitch charts.
I hope you're right David, I truly do. But we all know it's easy to isolate numbers that appear to support a particular position when the preponderance of evidence points in the opposite direction. (The eminent economist Thomas Sowell called these "Aha! statistics.")
Given how guys like Keller and Singer have performed in their last few starts, I find myself unconvinced that "these strides" are really the kind of strides we all would like to see.
Given Q's propensity to pinch hit, I was surprised when he didn't pinch hit for Bradley after Isbel got his pinch hit. Bradley has been absolutely brutal at the plate. When is Waters supposed to be ready. Our outfield bats have been terrible all year.
Oof. That one last night seemed uniquely frustrating to me. Which is saying something with a 5-18 team. Feels like we've had more than our share of starts, where only an inning or so into the game it is clear the starter doesn't "have it" and will be grinding to get through 4 innings. But the 5th inning was what was most frustrating to me. David, I'm curious if you have any thoughts regarding BWJ getting picked off? I'm a huge fan of Bobby, but as soon as he drew his walk (always nice to see him take a walk), Hud was pining for him to steal and even "go on first movement", which of course he ultimately did, leading to the pickoff. It seemed a little overly aggressive to me since their starter didn't seem to have very good stuff or command/control, and that was proved true by the walks and hit that followed. But what could have been a big inning turned into a single run. Did that jump out to you at all as poor decision-making, or am I just over-analyzing another disappointing night?
For a large majority of games this season, RISP has stood for Royals Insist on Stranding People. Monday night vs Arizona continued that trend with only a very occasional exception.
I know it’s not now. But in your opinion at this rate, when are you comfortable saying this is a talent issue? I really expected to get mixed results this year…but more good than bad. It’s been the opposite and I find myself not blaming the coaches anymore you know? Like Keller, everyone else has improved throwing strikes…why can’t you. It’s not them, it’s you kind of a thing now which probably isn’t the best thinking either but I’m finding myself giving the players no benefit of the doubt anymore when it comes to performance. I think Cal was terrible….so don’t get me wrong. I expected to go the whole year before having a good handle on if it was coaching or talent. I’m pretty sure we can come to that conclusion by June now the way this is going.
Believing that Brad Keller would be consistent this season or even that he would be better than last year required a leap of faith that I simply couldn't take. I knew of no tangible reason to do so.
Nor could I take the leap of faith that would be required in order to have confidence in this latest crew of Magical Pitching Whisperers. Perhaps they've had limited success with isolated pitchers and perhaps not. We may all be overly willing to credit them for the "ups" in the normal ups and downs of baseball.
The fact that they know how to speak in ways that appeal to the analytically-oriented among us is no guarantee that they can improve performances or outcomes in the real world away from their spreadsheets and pitch charts.
I hope you're right David, I truly do. But we all know it's easy to isolate numbers that appear to support a particular position when the preponderance of evidence points in the opposite direction. (The eminent economist Thomas Sowell called these "Aha! statistics.")
Given how guys like Keller and Singer have performed in their last few starts, I find myself unconvinced that "these strides" are really the kind of strides we all would like to see.
Given Q's propensity to pinch hit, I was surprised when he didn't pinch hit for Bradley after Isbel got his pinch hit. Bradley has been absolutely brutal at the plate. When is Waters supposed to be ready. Our outfield bats have been terrible all year.
Oof. That one last night seemed uniquely frustrating to me. Which is saying something with a 5-18 team. Feels like we've had more than our share of starts, where only an inning or so into the game it is clear the starter doesn't "have it" and will be grinding to get through 4 innings. But the 5th inning was what was most frustrating to me. David, I'm curious if you have any thoughts regarding BWJ getting picked off? I'm a huge fan of Bobby, but as soon as he drew his walk (always nice to see him take a walk), Hud was pining for him to steal and even "go on first movement", which of course he ultimately did, leading to the pickoff. It seemed a little overly aggressive to me since their starter didn't seem to have very good stuff or command/control, and that was proved true by the walks and hit that followed. But what could have been a big inning turned into a single run. Did that jump out to you at all as poor decision-making, or am I just over-analyzing another disappointing night?
Good point. You know the minors better than me. Forgot about Waters.